


Bessemer Cultivation

by LapisLaysLazyontheLounge



Category: RWBY
Genre: Added a second Parallel chapter about what Blake and Yang go through during the Fall of Beacon, F/F, Jaune die's instead, So 1.5k of these two falling in love, The whole impetus is I am forever angry about Pyrrha dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-02-11 21:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12944403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapisLaysLazyontheLounge/pseuds/LapisLaysLazyontheLounge
Summary: Simply just a short What-If? story about survival, moving on and thinking a short girl with a scythe is really caring and cute





	1. Chapter 1

            Pain, ice cold spears her ankle, driving her down. She hears herself cry out and distantly she realizes it's the first time anyone or anything ever wounded like this. Her breathing is rough, uneven and she knows she’s done for. Her opponent to good, to experienced, to willing to take a life where she can’t. Cinder is mocking her, sounding like a facsimile of every tripe villain ever written. She nocks the arrow and she’s terrified, she doesn’t want to die, she’s still a kid, she doesn’t deserve any of this or that and while the heartbeat moment of the arrow letting loose and her realization she’s not dead is an eternity it gives her a kaleidoscope to think about.

           She’s watching now, sprawled on the ground when Ruby is suddenly there fussing at her, voice broken, trying to carry her by herself to safety, while Jaune fights Cinder, blood dripping its way off her foot, the arrow still embedded there. Jaune she suddenly realizes and where before Ruby’s awkward struggles had more to due with height and weight difference now she’s dealing with a wounded Mistralian warrior trying to fight her away from her and help the person she loves. She hears herself calling his name, cursing actually cursing at Ruby, he needs her and she needs him and everything is tumbling together and Jaune’s yelling at Ruby something about protecting her and then suddenly his shield breaks in half and there’s so much blood and the last thing she hears is Ruby screaming and the world howling with white light.

          Putting weight on the ankle is terrible in the beginning. She’s far more likely to be spilled all over the floor, Ruby chiding her for being silly then to maintain any kind of balance. But it’s been three weeks since Beacon. Since Jaune. Since a piece of her heart was ripped out like a prize puzzle by a woman simply after her own life for her own gain killed- which is usually as far as she can get before the tears start again and Ruby’s holding her, softly rubbing at her back and softly singing something she can't place the first few times it happens through the pain. Its after the third time that she puts together that it must be something Yang did for her growing up after losing her mother and it tears at her heart more to think Ruby’s caring for herself when her own sister needs more tending. Hence the need, the drive to keep putting weight on her ankle, putting herself through agony to spare the girl who saved her a measure of some.

         They were leaving. After months of rehabilitation, retraining and sheer mind breaking obsession they were leaving. Her, Nora, Ren and Ruby were traveling to Haven. Her ankle still burned and she suspected she’d always have some form of lingering pain from the wound. The fact remained she could walk, she could fight and she would leave with them despite a heated argument with Ruby where the younger girl had broken down in tears begging not to lose anyone else. She had pretended for both their sakes to not hear the murmured, half formed thought she'd expressed besides that and they had come to an accord that she was going as their bodyguard. They traveled, they fended off Grimm and it's all familiar but different, like a song remixed so drastically the melody is changed but the rhythm is like coming home. Nora is Nora, though sometimes she catches herself with a quip intended to needle someone who isn't there, Ren is even quieter, his grip on StormFlower a little tighter. As for herself even she can admit she’s pushing herself like the possessed, her fighting harsher, her smiles slower to come and her eye’s always heavy with ill suppressed grief. Even still she tries her best to buck up Ruby because between leaving Yang and the total separation of her team, paired alongside Penny’s death and her own confusion as to who she is, the poor girl is suffering as much as any of them. She can tell even if the smile is just as pure, the voice just as happy and ready to make weird faces with Nora or tease Ren, or try her best to coax her out of the shell she’s built for herself, that Ruby hurts. A soul deep hurt that she recognizes cause its festering in herself to and it's almost natural the way they start to help each other. Little asides, pep talks, comforting words when the pain is too much and demands a release, they grow closer than they ever would’ve had the world stayed normal.

        “You like Ruby.” Nora says, like it’s a normal sentiment to point out, like the word’s don’t cause Pyrrha’s breath to hitch, the world to stop spinning, the stars to go out and a thousand million calamities to occur all in the same microsecond. She stares at her to dumb founded to even argue. “Ya know it probably reallllyyy happened after we picked up Oscar, but it maybe started while she helped you recover but either way you would get this lil tick in your face when they would talk and it was actually really cute but then Ren pointed I shouldn’t point it o-” Nora’s stream is interrupted by a hand, specifically hers as she clamps it over her mouth, willing to all the fates that no one heard them. The semi-reunited team RWBY is currently outside but Ren could be in earshot or Qrow or Oscar or any person in the world and no one deserves to hear such insanity. Which is what she tells Nora, impresses on her, pleads and cajoles her until once again someone is holding her and brushing her hair soothingly as she cries and cries and really can’t figure out why this time.

          It takes her six months of constantly screwing up her courage and battering down her worst thoughts before she kisses Ruby. Fighting the feelings of betrayal, of it’s too soon, that she wouldn’t like her back, all the heavy grief and sorrow, pouring it out like scalding acid to make room for pure fresh Vale mountain water, the kiss still takes time. She has to bend slightly to do it, while Ruby, though gaining several inches, has to half tip-toe to reach her. Contrary to all expectation she tastes of cinnamon and chocolate and something she can only pin down as being just uniquely Ruby. They’re lost for a moment or a year or however long a slightly tear riddled kiss may take before the sound of cat-calling and exaggerated complaints about someone owing Nora more lien than seems reasonable, but all she can truly focus on is Ruby smiling at her, red from chin to roots as Yang whoops in celebration while mingling bodily harm threats in Pyrrha’s direction. But it's only when Ruby leans back up and kisses her again, pulling her closer by the strap's of her armor that Yang really shouts in faux outrage and everyone laughs, that she knows that its okay, its real, she can move on and be happy and with her and her heart feels less ancient then it has in years.

           Ruby proposes in the winter. An exquisitely wrought, handmade engagement ring slips on her finger like it belongs there and Pyrrha at this point knows it does. The pain from Beacon is still there, the what if’s sometimes still catch her and the ghost of a bumbling but sweet boy will always have some portion of her but Ruby is hers and she is hers. The wedding is small, far smaller most would expect for two of the heroes of Remnant, the small(ish) collection of family and friends enough for both of them. The fact that they do it alonside Yang and Blake's own wedding make's it all the more unique and special, it seemed only natural to make it an event as brimming with love as they could fit into one building. Weiss is right alongside Ruby as her bridesmaid, pleased beyond measure for first and best friend. The reception is a typical mayhem for a gathering like theirs, toasts ever flowing to the couples. Taiyang dance’s with each of his newly married daughters and everyone melts, the night passes into early day with little tracking at all and it's only in their bed do they finally get to marvel at it all. She looks at Ruby nuzzled against her so tight that she can barely tell which limb of her’s is grabbing where and smoothes her head, brushing it as Ruby once did to her a lifetime ago. She’s falling asleep when Ruby shifts and looks at her and murmurs an I love you and it still lights her soul like it did the first time she heard it. Murmuring it back, Pyrrha’s sighs and lays back, the soft metal rose Ruby had forged for their first anniversary twinkling in the starlight as she drifts off.

       They’re old now, both gray and worn but still so full of love for each other it's become their fuel. They know it isn’t long before time claims either of them so they travel here and there and everywhere old, creaking bones can take them. They found their resting place in a meadow deep in vale, full of memory and ghosts of friends gone on, graven stone proclaiming steel and rose bound eternal and from them eternal stories had sprung.


	2. Being Bee's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Parallel Bee portion to this AU where Pyrrha lives.

            She launched herself hard, screaming her throat raw; she’d never felt the sheer depths of rage coursing through her like the worst virus ever encountered. All she could focus on was Him, standing in front of Her, prone and bleeding. She wanted to break him, drive her fist through his face over and over again until there was no Him, that all of this was fixed and she was safe. To late though that sword, that damnable sword flashed back out, still slick with Her blood and it rushed inhumanly fast at her. But there was no impact, no blood as Weiss, Weiss Schnee of all people, already battered and bleeding put Myrtenaster between her and Him. He snarled, throwing her back bodily, the heiress landing harshly just in time for Yang’s full fist to crack into his face.

           He stumbled backwards, almost tripping himself on Blake but she never let him move away. Repeated, vicious body blows slammed into him and she could hear herself roaring something primal at him as she pushed him back and back away from Blake and Weiss. He tried bringing his blade back to bear but she grabbed him arm and pistoled her other hand into the crook of his elbow so hard the limb shattered with a dark, triumph snap. Another series of punches, almost so fast and so brutal that Weiss would later admit that she had feared that Yang had killed him, threw him away from her and out a mostly shattered window. She stood there, eye’s aflame and panting, taking 3 steps forward before something bounced off the back of her head.

          Snarling, ready to fight whoever was next she realized it had been Weiss trying to get her attention, to get her to look at- which was as far as she got before she was back at their side’s taking Blake’s hand; weeping, sobbing, trying to tell her everything and nothing just to keep her awake and looking at her. She gathered Blake into her arm’s as gingerly as she could then forcing Weiss to clamber onto her back she rushed them both to the triage area, aka the safest piece of ground Goodwitch could find. Sun was there helping to tend to Neptune’s nasty forearm cut, several dozen students were there with an assortment ranging from bruises to wounds needing individual professors doing preventive battlefield care. A minor thought crossed Yang’s mind that the professor’s dealing with the grimm and Atlas bot’s must’ve been as overpressed and overworked as their colleagues were.

         But really all she could focus on was Blake; as Glynda herself marched over and looked the wound over. “The wound is severe but not deadly, one of the specialist will be by as soon as they finish with Mr. Vas-Neptune. In the meantime Yang, keep pressure on it just like that with that cloth and Weiss a glyph enabling short term binding would not go amiss.” And she moved on, not giving them time to answer. Yang looked down again and saw Blake had closed her eye’s, the pain making tight crow’s feet around them. And she noticed, that without even thinking about or considering it, that she had taken her scarf and was using that to staunch her bleeding.She kept her one eye on Blake's face, watching her take short shallow breaths as she tried to cope with the pain while keeping a lookout for whatever specialist Glynda managed to conjure up. She tried to ask Weiss how she was, to show that her entire world was devolving onto Blake but all she did was nod and take Yang's free hand squeezing it tightly to comfort her.

       The two of them stayed like that for an eternity, as someone whose name they never caught stitched Blake’s wound, giving them a clipped “Blade missed the intestine’s she’ll be fine just an added scar.” She held her hand throughout, watching her face as it tightened with each new needle pass through, grimacing in time with the flickers of additional pain. When the specialist was done, she still held her hand, she was deathly afraid that if she let go for even a second that the wound would open, the blood would flow again and this time never stop. Weiss had walked away, ignoring the attempts by others to give attention to her wounds. Yang knew what she had gone off to do and wished she could bring herself to do the same. Because while it gnawed at one part of Yang’s soul that she didn’t know where Ruby was, that she didn’t know what was happening to her and the possibility that she was alone and afraid or even hurt like Blake made her blood run cold; she couldn’t find the will to leave Blake’s side. They hadn’t said a word yet, just stared at each other, eye’s both brimming with thoughts and feelings and a few unshed tears. Yang opened and closed her mouth several times, always stopping herself short of saying anything that could not be taken back. So when the top of the tower ignited, when pure eye aching white burst across the sky, when a small voice echoed off the wind calling something, they just held each other as best as possible, drawing comfort at the end of the world.

 

        It took three days of nonstop threats, badgering and complaints to get Qrow to explain what had happened to her sister. At first he tried and succeeded in diverting her attention back to Blake, who they’d managed to bring home with them alongside a wounded but alive Pyrrha. But by the third day, with Blake capable of caring more for herself and Yang worrying that the sheer amount of raw physical closeness between them would make her do something foolish, she’d sat her uncle down and made him talk. So he explained it all. Maidens. Cinder. Pyrrha taking half a demi-goddesses power into her only to get an arrow through the heel and the death of a partner in the process of valiantly saving her life. The explosion of light being Ruby’s untapped and mythical power, saving them both. Their recovery as Pyrrha sobbed and wept and cradled her unconscious sister even as her heel bled. Of Cinder and more importantly Adam’s disappearance off the battlefield. She rubbed circles into her eye’s, trying to take it all in and failing. She knew Ruby was fine, physically at least but she could see the strain in her smile as she tended to Pyrrha, as she tried to talk to a friend who’d just lost someone she loved and had an impossibly heavy burden placed on her in the span of a hour. She knew that strain because it was kin to what she herself was going through.

      She checked in on Ruby and Pyrrha in the living room to find Pyrrha with her head resting in Ruby's lap as she stroked her hair lost in their own world and didn't have the heart to break the moment, whatever moment it was up. So she went back to Blake to find she was still in bed, leaning back against the wall and staring off into space. Her expression was clouded and a hand unconsciously hovered over her still healing wound. Aura could do many things but a six inch deep stab wound still took time to mend. She leaned against the doorway and before she could stop herself a quip was already leaving her mouth. "You want somebody to hold you, I'm right here baby." Blake jolted slightly and gave her a wan smile and though Yang was aghast internally at being such an idiot; it was the most genuine smile she'd gotten out of her since they'd arrived. "How'd you know I needed one of your bad jokes right now?" Yang looked at her and gave her most award winning smile using the same brand of flirtatious humor to brush the question off, that let her ignore the thump in her heart that went off every time Blake so much as glanced at her.

       It was 4 a.m. and she was listening to Blake just breathe in Ruby’s old bed. Taiyang had offered Pyrrha and Ruby to take his queen size while he took the couch and while she’d agreed that it was for the best so Ruby could be nearer to hand for Pyrrha, she hadn’t exactly liked the look in her father’s eye as he made a point of it being an offer only valid to them and not her and Blake. So she laid there, unable to sleep, just thinking. Trying to process the Fall, the Fight but most of all Her. She was so wrapped up, so tightly wound in on herself that Blake’s voice made her jump. After a mumbled exchange of sorry’s and no problem’s, they turned themselves towards each other, almost in perfect synchronicity, staring across the room. They stared for a moment, Yang reflecting that while Blake's eye's always had a hypnotic quality to them it was never moreso then in the dead of night. She could tell what Blake had to say wasn't a simple "I need help getting up" or "Can you get me so water" there was a scrunched up, nervous quality to her face that told Yang that she had something deeper to say.

    “I- I don’t know what to say.” Blake started, trying and failing to keep her cool, her eye’s already slightly brimming. “I- I can never say thank you enough Yang. You saved me. And yes Weiss helped and stopped him from hurting you to but you.saved.me. Not just from Adam….from all of it. From myself, from the pain, from him and you brought me to your house and you’ve been taking care of me and I know that you’re not getting sleep, that spend all the whole time just watching over me like- I don’t deserve it okay! I’m not a person who deserves all this, the kindness, the care, the lo-the affection you’ve given me. I- Yang I…” Blake had started to fully cry by now and Yang’s heart broke watching her. She buried her face in her hand’s and sobbed, body wracking cries of pain as she let all the dam’s and walls come down. Yang left her bed and crouched next to her, smoothing her hand through her hair, just letting her cry and empty herself out. She just watched and when Blake raised her face, when the tears weren’t coming as fast and thick, when in a voice still tremulous; she asked the question she’d been waiting a week, a month, a lifetime for. “Why did you do all that for me?”

 

 “Because I love you silly.”


	3. Two for One, One for Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Third Act Wedding(s)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with another installment of: How sappy can I make what was supposed to be a one-shot this time?

         The planning of _a_ wedding is a task that daunts even a seasoned huntress. Planning two, to occur at the same time, in the same place, _alongside_ one another was monumental for someone as organized and efficient as Weiss Schnee. Given ten months, each successive month brought a new level of stress to her back even as the four participants tried to intervene or at the very least give her help even though the most common snapback was “What kind of friend would I prove myself to be if I couldn’t do for all of you!”

 

       Which they had to admit she had done an absolutely stunning job of it. Wiess had made it a rule that after they had picked a wedding venue big enough to accommodate 0ver one hundred and fifty guests alongside all the decorations plus a minor choir Weiss had selectively cobbled together from some of the best musician’s in the entire world. The building itself was modest truth be told, much of it taken up by the central wedding hall, designed in such a way to give itself the feel of a much larger cathedral while appropriating the acoustics and feel of such. Wiess would’ve made a lecture out the architects name, his style and how he accomplished the building, particularly for Ruby but given it was the day before the wedding and she was only now letting the couples see what she had placed for decoration she made….allowances.

 

       She took a not-so-quiet pride in the look of awe and appreciation on all their faces, particularly on Blake’s face given how difficult it had been to tease out how she had wanted her wedding day to go. “....So we will time it so that when Pyrrha and Yang walk down the aisle the choir with spilt cleanly to both sides of the room and sing the traditional wedding song of Vale and and Mistral. You do know how difficult it was to acquire an arranger who was willing to accomplish the fusion of two wildly different songs so that they don’t clash, I mean really the fact that you two managed to have the same desire to walk down the aisle to traditional songs I mean Pyrrha I understand but-”

 

      Ruby held up a hand, shushing Weiss briefly before saying “Weisssss we appreciate but uhhhmm remember where we are mmaayyyybe we can skip the Schnee lecture till after tomorrow?” Weiss started, gawped at Ruby at bit and did a fake cough to cover her embarrassment. Moving on she continued walking them through, for what felt like the millionth time, how exactly to the precise minute the ceremony would go. Which was why, when the scheduled time for both the people supposed to walk down the aisle, neither showed up at the entrance door, Weiss’ temple very briefly throbbed as she hurry walked to the service rooms to find out the problems. She found Pyrrha in Yang’s room, the two of them pacing up and down in parallel to each other murmuring out loud without really realizing it.

 

     “We’re both so young maybe we should hold off…”

 

   “I don’t deserve Blake, she just so Blake and beautiful and wonderful and…”

 

    “It’d be to hard on her, she’s already so stressed all the time, she’s to young to have so much of the world heaped on her and us getting married….”

 

  “I love her enough to know I’m not good enough for her, I’m just not okay it’s a fact, how can I give her everything I know she deserves    ….”

 

      Weiss sighed heavily, clacked her heels hard on the floor to get both brides-to-be attention and waved at them. “Uhmmm hello??? You two need to get married, like down the aisle, vow’s and kissing the bride deal? Yang stop beating yourself like you don’t deserve Blake, you know no one deserves another person they _find_ the person. And guess what you and Blake found each other. I mean who else in the world could even think of putting up with you everyday for the rest of their life let alone be excited about doing it. And Pyrrha, sweetie you think Ruby would even think about you being a burden? No one is a burden in her eye’s most particularly you! And you know “holding off” isn’t really what you want to do you’re just worried Ruby won’t want you when you age slightly faster then her, as if she didn’t admit to all of us two years ago that she had a crush on Cinder before….everything happened.”

 

       Pyrrha was just looking at Weiss blank faced, mildly ashamed that she’d let herself spiral out so hard on the typical pre-wedding nerves but Yang had put her head down, chin tight to her neck and hair partially covering her face. When she spoke it was in a near whisper. “What if it turns out she doesn’t want me as much I want her?” Weiss let out another sigh, walked over to Yang and embraced her, squeezing her hard, before whispering something Pyrrha couldn’t catch into her ear. After they separated Yang smiled, ruffled Weiss’ carefully and painstakingly styled hair and told her thanks before saying to Pyrrha “Welp looks like it’s time to go get married huh Nikos?”

  


      For all the cheering, the crying, the hall bursting with love that the wedding entailed it was at the reception where Weiss truly showed the fruits of her labor. Various forms of Dust hand been hand molded and flash frozen into sculptures that Weiss thought befitting each of the people involved. A snarling dragon shot through with lighting dust curled protectively around an Earth dust made Panther nuzzled against the dragons side. A fire engine red direwolf and a orange tinted amazon stood side by side, the amazon’s left hand gripped affectionately in the direwolves fur. Rose’s stood on each carefully arranged table, one’s that Taiyang himself had specifically cultured to represent each of his daughter’s relationships and to act as presents for them all. And so after the first dance’s, in which Ruby stunned everyone by showing off that Weiss had not only taught her how to finally dance in heels but to look graceful while doing so, by the time that most everyone invited had left a the small tight knit clutch of people that steadily blurred the line between the words family and friend that it was a distinction without a difference, the bride’s were exhausted.

 

      “Ruby, sweetheart I love you to but we can’t leave yet, people are still here!” Pyrrha said, half heartedly trying to peel Ruby off her back. Ineffectually patting at the back of her now wife’s head Ruby mumbled “But I’m tiiiirrreeddd and it's just Dad! And Uncle Qrow and Ren and Nora and Oscar and…. Uhhmmm is that Raven?” Blake who had currently been chatting with Sun while Yang was in the bathroom was interrupted as Raven walked over to her. She looked her newly minted daughter in law up and down before staring at Blake in the eye making her briefly uncomfortable before Raven broke the eye contact. She snorted, glanced over at Taiyang and said “Keep Yang out of trouble if you can though truthfully she can be more trouble than she’s worth.” Blake just looked at her, languidly blinking before replying.

 

     “Funny she told me much the same about you. Though in that case she actually meant what she said.” Nora went to say something but Ren clapped a hand over her face. Ruby and Pyrrha just watched, waiting for the next moment to happen. Though Raven had aided them in the battle’s against Salem, the relationship between her and Yang was somewhere south of abysmal. Given that her arrival was not only unannounced and unwanted both of them wanted to be prepared for however the situation played out. As Raven went to finally say something in retort, Yang walked back in stopping short upon seeing her. Eye’s briefly flashing scarlet before returning to their normal color, Yang snorted and flipped Raven off.

   

    “What Mom here to celebrate me finding someone who loves me or just here to show off?”

    “Yang sto-”

    “No Dad not gonna. She show’s up, gets in my wife’s face and is obviously here just to be a prick. You two might have “repaired” your relationship but me and her? Fat chance. She’s made her choice with me and that’s not to know me. So whatever you have to say Raven, out with it then out with you.”

         

     Raven looked at her estranged daughter, briefly smiled and then chuckled. “Hmph ya know….Summer use to talk to me like that all the time in school. Fit’s that she taught you how to run your mouth.” And she pulled something from her pocket, making a gesture to show it was nothing untoward or dangerous and tossed it to Yang. Catching it, she saw it was a simple brown wrapped package of small-ish size. Clutching it she found herself against her will briefly tearing up. Even still her blood roared in her ears over Raven’s flippant attitude and looked up to give her more then just words to find that Blake was in front of her looking concerned while Raven had seemingly taken off leaving Taiyang blushing profusely while Ruby made fake retching noises next to him. She did her best to put her mother out her mind as Blake took her hand and brought her back to the dance floor, forcing the DJ to once again queue up her favorite song so they could dance to it. 

 

      Eventually, blissfully, the wedding couples were allowed to leave. Nora carried an amusingly intoxicated Ren on her back while Taiyang griped at Q'row about having to half carry him back to the car while he murmured drunken platitudes to the departing couples. While Ruby and Pyrrha were headed for a honeymoon on Vacuo, both of them having decided that backpacking and sleeping under the stars was a perfect way to spend a clutch of free weeks, Blake and Yang had were going to an isolated part of Menagerie. Specifically a part far enough apart from her parents to enable constant intrusion but close enough if any lingering remnants of Taurus loyal White Fang showed up. It was a small place, just enough room to explore and be with each other, to have some peace of mind before reality reasserted itself as loudly as they both knew it could.

 

     So when Yang had drifted off to sleep that first night, nuzzled against Blake and despite every waking protestation to the contrary, snoring loudly against her. Blake  just laid there, marveling at everything, the past few years of love, triumph, loss and heartache. After the Fang she’d never thought she’d recover enough to trust someone as completely as she trusted Yang. And yet now she had a whole circle of people, of friends that were family that infused her with more love and care then she could handle most times she thought about it. But even all that love, all those bonds were but a fragment of what she felt for Yang and what she now know beyond any shadow, Yang held for her. So before finally allowing herself to sleep in her wife’s arms she gently kissed the top of Yang’s head and whispered just the on right shade shy of silence.

 

     “From here...to forever Yang is how you have me, so let’s see how much trouble the two of us can bring.”


End file.
